Comparing effects of situationally relevant and irrelevant prosocial behavior on mood in students of Tehran universities

Past studies indicate that prosocial behavior enhances mood. Most of these studies have only investigated mood enhancement in the specific situation that has triggered empathy; while prosocial behavior does not necessarily take place in the same situation. The goal of this study is to investigate the enhancement effect of prosocial behavior on mood between empathy-triggering situation and an unrelated situation. 60 students studying in universities of Tehran participated in this experiment. After inducing empathy & primary mood measurement, the first group conducted a situationally relevant prosocial behavior, the second group conducted a situationally irrelevant prosocial behavior, & the third group participated in a control task. Afterward, the mood of participants was measured again. After controlling for pre-test scores, prosocial behavior did not have a significant effect on negative affect (P = 0/47); but had a significant effect on positive affect (P = 0/011). Pairwise comparisons revealed that situationally irrelevant prosocial behavior enhanced positive affect more than the control task (P=0/009). Lower estimation of prosocial behavior’s success, uncertainty about improvement of the receiver’s situation, and dual perspective taking may contribute to stability of negative affect. The lack of significant difference between related prosocial behavior and control groups, and the difference between unrelated prosocial behavior and control group, can be understood by predictions of how unsuccessful prosocial behaviors are to be. This suggests that mood enhancement due to prosocial behavior is more about success of prosocial behavior rather than improving welfare of empathy subjects.